Key Points

• Life balance goes by many names — work-life balance, work-family balance, work-non-work balance.

• The right life balance is unique to each person. You have the opportunity but also a responsibility to define it for yourself.

• Four factors influence a sense of balance: involvement, competence, feelings, and alignment.

• Developing life balance requires continuous attention. However, research indicates it’s worth the effort. A sense of balance is linked with positive work and life outcomes.

Defining life balance

What is life balance?

The answer to that question is in your hands. You define balance for yourself. That means you have an opportunity, but also a responsibility when it comes to life balance. You can't look to your boss, friends, gurus, or celebrities to define it for you.

That said, a better understanding of the concept can help support you in the definition process.

A 2018 study indicates there are over 230 different conceptualizations of balance in the academic research — work-life balance, work-family balance, work-family conflict, work/non-work balance and so on.

Lucky for us, this same research also indicates there are common themes across these conceptualizations. It’s these themes that can be helpful as you aim to better understand and define balance for yourself.

Four factors that influence our sense of balance

You derive a sense of balance based on a few factors related to different domains in your life (e.g., work, relationships, community involvement, personal development, health and well-being, etc.)

These factors are:

• Involvement: How much time and energy are you investing in various life roles?

• Competence: How effective are you across different life domains? What are you achieving?

• Feelings: What is your experience in these different domains? Does it trend positive, negative or is it mixed?

• Alignment: How well do your investments in each area align with your values and priorities?

The term involvement suggests balance is not merely about how much time you invest in various areas of your life, but also if you are fully present during that time. It's wholly possible to work out a way to be physically present for many activities, but to be so exhausted that mental or emotional presence is out of reach.

Competence indicates that it's not enough to put time and energy into something — you want to feel as though you are effective at it as well.

Feeling demonstrates that your emotional experiences in different domains are have an impact. Do they trend positive, negative or are they mixed? If you invest a great deal of yourself in a particular area of your life, achieve a lot in it, but don’t much enjoy the experience, the related negative feelings may have an impact on your sense of balance.

But, involvement, competence, and feelings are not the full story. There's one more element that is key. That is how your investments of time, competence, and feeling align with your priorities and values.

Life balance isn’t about equality across life domains. Generally, you are not looking for the same returns in all areas of life. Instead, balance involves making more substantial investments, and having more positive experiences, in the areas that are most important to you.

For that reason, if you feel your career is the most important thing to you, it might feel best when you are investing a lot in your work. You may feel off balance if other demands pull you away for work. Likewise, such investments might feel a bit out-of-balance if you do not feel you are accomplishing much.

For others, a sense of connection with family and community may be a top priority. \ Long hours at the office that keep them from volunteering and spending time with family may leave them feeling off-kilter.

Identifying what’s most important to you

A pre-requisite for balance is clarity about your priorities and values.

There are many ways to build your awareness of your priorities and values, such as:

• Reflecting on experiences of flow — Flow is when you feel completely engaged in what you are doing, such that you lose a sense of time. Working with a coach or on your on, reflect on the last time you felt a sense of flow and identify what you were doing, who was there, where you, etc. From your reflection, what have you learned about the aspects of your life that bring you the most fulfillment and in which you want to invest more?

• Identifying your strengths —  Strengths are things that you do well and provide you a feeling of energy (vs. depletion). Having a nuanced sense of your strengths and how to use them well is linked with greater well-being and performance. A strengths assessment can help you better understand the strengths you want to leverage and things that you may wish to dial down or avoid as you recalibrate your balance.

What does life balance have to do with organizational change?

Although our values often remain fairly stable throughout our life, our priorities or how we express those values may evolve over time. Shifts, such as those experienced during significant organizational changes, may spur you to reevaluate the balance you strike and renegotiate the investments you make in different aspects of your life.

Additionally, if you are in a leadership role during organizational transitions, you should anticipate that some of your colleagues may be spurred by the change to evaluate their balance and make adjustments that may have implications for how they wish to show up in the organization.

Why should you bother with continuously crafting your sense of balance?

Balance is something you must tend to continuously, which could feel like a lot of effort?

While auto-pilot may be tempting, studies indicate that intentionally crafting balance in your life is worth the effort. A greater sense of balance is related to a variety of work outcomes — such as job satisfaction, performance, and career development. However, there are even more substantial links with "life outcomes" such as life satisfaction, and physical and emotional well-being. For instance, some researchers have found significant links between a greater sense of life balance, and reduced stress, anxiety, and irritability.

This evidence suggests that balance is a key ingredient for a satisfying life. Given that, it seems wise to view it more as a basic need, than a luxury good. “Perfect balance” may be an ideal that is out-of-reach, however, small steps that positively impact well-being are within everyone’s grasp.

References

Casper, W. J., Vaziri, H., Wayne, J. H., DeHauw, S., & Greenhaus, J. (2018). The jingle-jangle of work–nonwork balance: A comprehensive and meta-analytic review of its meaning and measurement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(2), 182.

Haar, J. M., Russo, M., Suñe, A., & Ollier-Malaterre, A. (2014). Outcomes of work–life balance on job satisfaction, life satisfaction and mental health: A study across seven cultures. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 85(3), 361-373.

Sirgy, M. J., & Lee, D. J. (2018). Work-life balance: An integrative review. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 13(1), 229-254.

This article was originally published in November 2018, it was updated in June 2024.